Storytelling Week 12: Shot Through the Heart

Medical Field Report, July 24th 1862- Dr. Richard Anderson
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Three bullets straight to the chest. Yet, he was still breathing. Those balls of lead must have sidled up right next to the heart without tearing it to pieces. When I put my ear to his chest, I could hear his heart pressing against the unforgiving metal with every shaky beat.

I wiped the sweat from my brow as I looked at the miracle lying before me. As the senior field surgeon, I had learned that war could twist expectations in every way possible. In medicine, it was triple amputees who were spared from infection. In America, it was a fight that pitted North against South, brother against brother. When I chose to practice medicine, I never imagined that I would bear witness to every facet of the human condition.

Somehow I had stopped the bleeding, so I rushed across the field hospital to fetch the other surgeons and my apprentice. Yesterday's battle had provided today's hell on earth. Severed limbs rotted in metal buckets. Screams begging for mercy rang out from each tent. The foul air, saturated with filth and illness, left the metallic taste of blood on the tongue.

I ducked my head into the blood-stained supply tent--the central hub of this organized chaos.

"You all are gonna want to see this."

The surgery tent where the miracle happened. Wikipedia Commons.

With my colleagues and apprentice in tow, I briskly walked the tent that housed my patient. I felt like I was about to exhibit a medical masterpiece--an opus that defied medical knowledge of the time.

During the time I had exited to round up my colleagues, blood has started to seep from underneath the soiled rags I had used to staunch the bleeding. We couldn't afford to spare any time to gaze in awe. Those bullets needed to be removed.

After the had sedated the patient with the little whiskey we had remaining, we removed the rags to take a look at the entrance wounds.

"Why can't we just leave the bullets in him? We do it all the time."

The other surgeons seemed to nod in agreement with Thomas.

"Those rounds are embedded right next to the heart. What's stopping them from tearing a hole in the coronary artery? If we close him up as I is now, a strong cough could be the difference between life and death for him. We're operating," I responded.

The bleed was slowly worsening, so we all tried to tease out all three bullets at once. The wasted body on the table let out a groan as I inserted my finger into the wound to get a feel for the bullet's location.

"Dammit, this fucker has clipped the pericardium."

More importantly, the bullet had nearly wrapped the aorta around itself like a blanket. I struggled to grasp it with my forceps without pushing the splintered bone into the exposed heart. Warm, slick blood gave my steady a hand a run for its money. My colleagues didn't seem to be having much more luck than I was. I prepared myself for a race against the clock.

CLINK!

The sound of metal on metal pierced through the stench in the tent. I looked up to find a crimson, metallic orb lying on the tin plate we used as our waste tray.

"Who...who just removed that?"

I quickly gazed over the operating table. The blood-soaked forceps clasped in my apprentice's hand answered my question.

"Lucas? That was you?"

I could barely believe it. My apprentice had performed the impossible. I gaped at him as if he had pulled Excalibur from its stone.

"Can you do it again?"

Without saying a word, my apprentice walked over to where I stood to coax the bullet out from its sanctuary near the heart. Five minutes later, the patient's chest gave birth to the second bullet. Fifteen minutes later, we had the whole set. Hours later, the patient is doing fine, albeit with a intense hangover.

As I finish this entry, I cannot stop myself from reflecting upon my role as a surgeon. I place so much pride in my skill to extract life from places where death should only reign. However, perhaps I should keep my ego in check. For now, it seems that the student has become the teacher.

Author's Note: Prompted by my interest in medicine, I decided to retell The Drawing of the Sword story from the King Arthur unit in the setting of a field hospital during the Civil War. It should be noted that there are a few medical terms in here, but they have been used in a way that does not take understanding away from the story. Just in case, the aorta is the main artery that takes oxygenated blood from the heart and sends it off to the rest of the body.

Bibliography:
King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table 
Andrew Lang
1902